


something just like this

by anathebookworm



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Drunk F!SS, F/M, Not-so-drunk Deacon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-02
Updated: 2017-10-02
Packaged: 2019-01-08 02:17:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12245130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anathebookworm/pseuds/anathebookworm
Summary: Post the quest "Devil's Due." With some romance throw in the middle. And friendly deathclaws. And hungry super mutants that like discussing culinary. And blushing farmers.(Slightly edited.)





	something just like this

**Author's Note:**

> Hm. It’s been a while since I wrote fanfiction that wasn’t about Until Dawn, but I suddenly missed Fallout so much that I wrote this. It’s mostly me taking a break from my original fiction. But hey, that doesn’t mean I won’t write more one shots later. Or post more chapters here to increase the drama? I have some ideas, buuuuuut. Maybe this is too crappy. You tell me.
> 
> Title comes from the Coldplay/The Chainsmokers song. I dunno, it seemed appropriate?

“Uh...good deathclaw!” Laura exclaims with some fake ease into her voice. Mommy Deathclaw ignores her, preferring to focus on covering her egg with dirt. “Nobody needs to become dinner tonight, right?”

“Care to remind me again why we’re helping the violent walking tanks? I don’t think that even Preston ‘Let’s -Help-Another-Settlement’ Garvey would agree with this.” Deacon huffs, though he does walk away from Mommy Deathclaw slowly.

“Come on, look at her! Clara is so happy to have an egg to take care of.”

“Clara? Now we’re naming the meat grinders too?”

“Doesn’t she look like ‘Clara’ to you? She’s totally Clara to me.”

Truth is, she can understand the deathclaw. It’s a mother. Like her. And didn’t she do everything she could to have her son back? Well, if Laura can help someone else in getting their child back too, she’s damn well going to do it.

“Fine, whatever,” Deacon concedes. “Let’s just walk away before  _Clara_  decides her baby needs food.”

As they make their way back to the Castle in silence, Laura can’t really erase that image from her mind. A friendly deathclaw. Amazing. One that actually trusted her with its egg. In all the years since she woke up, she had never seen something quite like that.

Shaun would’ve loved that, wouldn’t he? He’s so naive most of the time. Still believes there’s good to everyone. Maybe he’s right. If even deathclaws can show mercy, then there has to be hope for everyone.

“You did it because of the kid,” Deacon blurts suddenly, making Laura’s head snap up.

“What?”

“The egg. You gave it back because of the kid. Not the deathclaw kid. Yours.”

“I...not as much as I did it for the mom,” she says, fixing her hat. “I don’t want a mother to go through what I did.”

He stays silent for a moment, but when Laura looks at him again, Deacon is running his hands over his face. “Shit, Charmer. I...I guess I get it. Sorry for being an asshole about it.”

“But you’re right about Shaun anyway,” she says. “It’s what he’d have done. I want to make sure he’s proud of me—even if he can’t actually see my actions.”

He snorts, though not unkindly. “That one? Trust me, you got that one covered. Kid could kiss the ground you walk on.”

“Back at you.” She smiles, her hands itching to touch him for a second. She doesn’t—instead, her hands remain clenched by her sides. “He keeps babbling about how ‘cool’ you are. Wants to be like you when he grows up.”

His pause is all the answer she needs. However, in a true Deacon fashion, he brushes her off the next second. “Aww, don’t go all mushy on me. Next thing I know, we’ll be talking about my mole rat pet that we had to put down.”

She rolls her eyes. “I thought we were past the lies?”

“Nah. They’ll always be here. Sorry to disappoint.”

This time, beneath the facade, Laura can see something. She doesn’t know what it is exactly, but it’s still...something.

“You’ll never disappoint me,” she says with a serious face, pausing her walking to truly stare at her companion while waiting for his reaction. “Yeah, I could do without the lies. But you won’t disappoint me by being who you are.”

He stops walking so quickly, so abruptly, that his glasses fall from the bridge of his nose and to the ground. Maybe they made a sound. Maybe not. But all Laura can look at in that moment are his eyes. Blue. So, so blue. Much like her own, but with more depth than she has ever found. He doesn’t take his glasses off nearly as much as she’d have liked—so moments like these are always ones to be cherished.

“I...I don’t know why I lie anymore,” he confesses, bending down to pick his glasses. He doesn’t put them back, though. Not yet. “I might be full of bull, but if there’s one thing you should believe...it’s that you’re my friend. Hell, maybe the only one I’ve got. And that...that means a lot. Damn, I sound mushy. Let’s just...leave it the way it is. Good talk, huh?”

When he starts making a move to cover his eyes with the glasses again, she grabs his wrist on a whim. He freezes. She freezes. Then she takes the glasses from him and put them in her bag.

“Charmer, I’d really rather have ‘em back if you don’t mind—”

“You know, I’m not your only friend. Back at the Castle, people care about you. We have friends. Yes, of course you do have me. We’re the Death Bunnies—and that doesn’t work if we aren’t together. But I’ve always hoped that maybe—”

“I’m hungry. For human,” reverberates from around them. Immediately, Laura drops on her belly and takes cover in the middle of some bushes. Deacon does the same—their conversation can wait. If she isn’t mistaken—and she usually isn’t when it comes down to this sort of things—the low, growling voice can only belong to a super mutant.

“Humans. Hmph. Stringy. Boney,” another voice answers. Another super mutant.

“But still tasty,” the first super mutant says back. From where she’s hiding, Laura can barely see them. It’s too dark. She can only make out a little of their silhouettes, walking away from them. “Human better than Brahmin. Or bugs.”

“Anything’s better than bugs.”

“Not ghouls.”

“Eh, you’re right, brother. Not ghouls.”

She holds her breath—god, what she wouldn’t give to have Strong with them now. He usually isn’t one to like hanging around her—or Deacon, for the matter—but she feels a lot safer to fight super mutants when he’s around.

But then, the mutant duo walk away. Just walk away. They’re too busy discussing their culinary preferences to notice there are two  _tasty_ humans lingering around.

She doesn’t know why she doesn’t want to fight them. She’s just. Exhausted. Since the fall of the Institute, Laura’s been doing her best to lay low. Fight only if it’s absolutely necessary. That includes fighting deathclaws and super mutants.

“So, I guess now I understand why Strong thinks it’s such a big deal to gift people with radroach meat,” Deacon mutters, though he remains very still on the ground. His breath disturbs some of the dirt surrounding them, but other than that, they’re hidden.

“He gives radroach meat to you?” she asks—whispers—with her eyebrows raised. Maybe she was wrong to think that Strong didn’t like hanging around Deacon, after all. Her super mutant friend can surprise her a lot, if she thinks about it.

Deacon surprises her a lot, too.

She only wishes she could’ve finished that conversation with him. She’s been meaning to talk about that for so long. Even before the Institute fell. And now that her Shaun seems to like the man so much, she doesn’t want to wait anymore. It’s been almost three years since they’ve become partners.

Partners.

She wants to snort at the memory of when they discussed what that meant. Are they robbing a bank? Starting a business? Dating?

That was the first time she managed to flirt with him. She said she wouldn’t mind doing either of these three things. For a minute, she thought he’d blush or something.  _But he brushed her off._

“Hey, Charmer, you still there?” Deacon waves a hand in front of her face. She blinks, before nodding. “Good. Let’s get the hell out of here, alright? I don’t want to wait around for other super things to find us.”

Yes.

Yes, of course. He’s right.

Super mutants rarely move alone—or in small groups. If there were two wandering around, there must be more not too far away. Yes, they need to move. Whatever settlement is nearer—it’ll have to do for this night.

Wait. Did he even answer her question about Strong? Or did she drift too much?

“Charmer?” He insists, offering her a hand so she could get up from the dirt ground. “Come…on?”

She frowns—at herself, mostly—and gets up without his help.

If this bothers Deacon, he doesn’t show it much more than by raising one eyebrow. _Oh!_  That’s when she realizes he’s still without his glasses. His blue eyes are still staring her, completely bare. No barriers between them.

“Y-yeah,” she finally answers. “Let’s go.”

Once again, they travel in silence. Deacon doesn’t even comment when she picks up things he considers “junk” to take back to her son, so the kid can build something new. Laura doesn’t really know what to think about that—she wants to say she understands him, but most of the time she doesn’t.

She sees the pain in his blue eyes, she sees sadness behind every word and gesture. But she doesn’t understand why it’s there. He doesn’t tell her. He never lets her in.

It’s only when they’re welcomed in a small settlement of farmers—everyone seems more than happy to help the “Minuteman General,” the woman they believe helped take down the Institute—that she can’t keep quiet anymore.

Laura picks up a bottle from her bag—she’s been storing that, waiting to drink when Shaun wasn’t near and when she actually needed a drink. Now’s as good a time as any, right?

“Everything sure looks better at the bottom of a glass,” she says after the first sip, wincing as the liquid burns down her throat. After the initial burning sensation though, it feels great. She takes another sip. “I think I remember you saying that once.”

Deacon snorts. “I think so.” Then he eyes her bottle for a moment and adds, “Wow, while I’ve been known to partake on some of that too, I’ve always thought this stuff was supposed to be used to polish chrome.”

She can’t help snorting and waving the bottle in front of his nose. “Aw, don’t be like that. I’m okay with sharing.”

Her mind is already fuzzy with all the “sips” she’s been taking. How much did she drink already anyway? Should she drink this much?

Well, she guessed it didn’t matter right now. They were safe for the night—she could drink a little if she wanted. It’s been _ages_ since she drank any alcohol.

When Laura looks up at Deacon’s face, he’s frowning. Eyeing the bottle and then her. And then the bottle again.

With a mischievous grin, she gives it a shake again. And he can’t take it anymore, apparently—because he snatches the bottle from her hands and takes a long, long sip.

“Whew,” she says with a smile. “Cheers!”

They stay like that for a while—drinking the “stuff that was supposed to be used to polish chrome” and laughing at each other. It’s weird, but Laura likes it. It feels much more like normalcy than talking with deathclaws.

No, not just deathclaws. Clara and her baby. Laura’ll have to look for them again some other time. From a safe distance, of course.

Oh! Oh, and she’ll have to remember to ask Strong about his culinary preferences. Maybe that’ll be an interesting conversation. Then again, maybe not. Maybe he’ll just tell her he’d rather eat an entire settlement than bugs.

Thinking about this reminds Laura about her earlier chat with Deacon and, through the blur that is her mind at that moment, she slurs, “You never answered my question, you know.”

His head snaps up, eyes piercing hers. He doesn’t look half as drunk as she feels. Perhaps he was serious when he said he used to drink a lot. Maybe he’s so used to it he can’t feel drunk anymore. She hopes this never happens with her.

“And which question are we talking about, Charmer? You’re always such a chatterbox,” he drawls, rolling his eyes.

Before she answers him, she takes off her hat and undoes her ponytail. It feels so great to let her hair flow down a little—though she’d feel immensely better if she had some shampoo and conditioner. That’d be so like heaven.

“My question about Strong,” she finally says. “If he’s giving you meat behind my back.”

“Ohh, I see!” He smiles—like always, it’s fake. So, so fake. Or maybe that’s just what her drunk brain believes? “Jealous of a super mutant. Can’t say I’ve ever seen that.”

“Har, har.” She snorts. “I’m really amused. Can’t you see?”

Deacon pouts. “Such a spoilsport. Well, yeah. He gave me radroach meat once or twice. If it makes you feel better, he gave it to Shaun, too. But hey, we’re possibly not that special to him. If we were, he’d have given us…what did they say? Oh, right. Brahmin or humans.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Oh, don’t be like that. Maybe one day he’ll decide he hates me too, and just give me a ghoul. Figure he could gift me with Hancock? I’d love to boss him around for a while.”

He laughs—almost like a free, careless laugh tossed in just because—but she’s stuck in one part of his sentence. “Hate him too.” He honestly believes people hate him?

“I wish I could make you understand that people actually like you,” she says before thinking better of it. “I mean, I thought you said I was your friend? How’s that possible if you think I hate you? Or telling me we’re friends was another lie?”

If she weren’t so annoyed with the situation—and so drunk—Laura would have found it amusing the way his eyes bulged out for a moment. He barely hides his shock. She can’t really tell if that makes her proud or not.

“I-I...Jesus fuck, of course that wasn’t a lie. Of all the things to accuse me of lying about, you chose that one?”

Is he hurt? He sounds suspiciously like he is. Or is finally feeling the drink they shared hit his stomach?

“I don’t know, Deacon. I just don’t know if you ever told me something about you that wasn’t a lie.”

As if to prove a point—whatever point—she tosses his glasses back him, almost hoping he’ll put them on and forget about her rant. She’s being a bitch, she knows it. But damn it if she isn’t frustrated!

For a long moment, he stays quiet, looking away. Laura thinks she’s getting her wish and he’s letting go of what she said. Maybe she was bitchy enough to drive him away for good. Maybe she’ll wake up tomorrow and he’ll be gone and she won’t ever find him again.

She wants to say her heart doesn’t hurt at these thoughts, but that’d be a lie. And she isn’t a liar.

“John,” Deacon says at last. “It’s John.”

She barely raises her head to study his face, too busy wallowing in her embarrassment. “What?”

“My name.” This time, she does look at him. But he isn’t looking at her. “My name’s John. Completely unoriginal, right? My parents could have been more creative.”

Her eyes are the ones that are at risk of bulging now.

“John D...” she whispers, mostly to herself, remembering PAM’s documents. “That’s you.”

“Yup,” he says with a mirthless chuckle. “I’m flattered you snooped around to get this info on me.”

“I didn’t know...”

“At least that makes me feel a little better. I still got something you didn’t know.”

She answers without thinking, “You still have a lot of things I don’t know about.”

“Let’s move this discussion to some other day. I feel like my name is enough for now. Right?”

Laura smiles. “You’re not pulling my leg, are you?”

“Surprisingly? Nope, I’m not. I should. But it’s true.” He pauses to scratch his neck, his fingers brushing against his dark hair. She likes it when he doesn’t go bald. The black hair looks really good on him. “Are you...uh, I mean, do you believe me now? That we’re friends?”

And there she has it. The chance to continue their earlier conversation, the one the super mutants interrupted. And if they’re opening up, what better moment will she find?

“I do believe you, D.” She reaches to close her fingers around his wrist, caressing the sunburn skin. She should stop dragging him around the Commonwealth with her—it’s bound to hurt him one of these days. “And I’ve always been waiting to tell you that I...I’ve felt alone for a long time. But ever since I joined the Railroad and partnered up with you...that feeling faded more and more.”

“I...” He gulps, his eyes focused on the way her fingers kept moving on his wrist. “I guess I never thought about it that way.”

“I don’t want to ever feel alone like that again,” she continues. “If I can ask you to tell me the truth one more time...can you tell me if you’re going to leave me alone?”

He stays silent for so long that Laura can’t avoid the tears that we’ll up in her eyes. It’s...this silence is answer enough. She shouldn’t have brought this up. She shouldn’t. She would have a better chance at talking with another deathclaw.

But surprising everything in her, Deacon reaches to her and brushes her tears away with both of his hands. Calloused hands. Hands of someone who was born and lived their whole lives in this hell that is their world now.

For some reason, that makes her cry harder. The floodgates open, and she can’t find the way to close them again. She can’t. She just keeps crying until she’s sobbing, but he doesn’t stop trying to keep her tears at bay. Doesn’t stop brushing them away.

“Charmer, don’t cry,” he whispers. His voice is so soft, so unlike the way he usually speaks. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me to. Promise. Alright? You don’t have to cry.”

“It’s Laura,” she manages to say between her tears. “My name is Laura. Y-you can call me this. If-if you want.”

“I’ll remember that,” he says, smiling genuinely. “Laura.”

She  _really_  doesn’t think she’d act like this if she were somber. She hopes she wouldn’t, at least. But something about the way he says her name...it breaks and fixes her heart at the same time.

And she kisses him.

Just like that.

She’s not really expecting him to answer that, to kiss her back or anything. She just...she fantasized about that too much. She needs to know what it’d be like. And now she does.

But once again, he surprises her. His hands—still on her cheeks—move to her hair, and he kisses her deeply. He own hands—still on his wrists—move to his neck so she can help him deepening the kiss.

It’s been so long. Two hundred fucking years. She can’t help that she’s horny, and she doesn’t even think too much about it when her hands move to remove his white (slightly dirty) shirt.

The fact that he never protests shouldn’t have surprised her—but it does.

* * *

 

Part of her, Laura admits, still expects that he’ll disappear once she opens her eyes. But he doesn’t. The arm snaked around her naked middle is proof enough.

What a surprising man she has in her hands.

“You think we gave these farmers something to think about?” He mumbles against her neck, making Laura shiver. “We weren’t exactly quiet last night.”

“I don’t...I really don’t want to think about this,” she retorts, hiding her blush. The chuckle she feels rather than hears is real this time, full of mirth. It’s at her expense, but maybe she doesn’t mind it all that much.

What she does mind is how her head is pounding, how the sunlight hurts everything from her eyes, to her brain, to even her nose.

* * *

 

Laura is rather relieved when they leave the farm behind to go back on their path to the Castle. She doesn’t know when she’ll be able to go back to this place—possibly not until she forgets all the looks she got. Amused, horrified, curious, judging.

“Regretting it already?” Deacon asks her once they’re away from anyone’s earshot. She doesn’t miss the note of self-depreciation in his voice—and she can’t help but wonder what she did wrong to make him feel like that. He seemed...okay before. Sure, she’s still feeling hungover (and she bets he feels like that, too,) but that doesn’t mean she’s regretting what she did.

She might not have brave enough to try and sleep with him if she was somber—but that didn’t mean she didn’t want it. She wanted it a lot. Had wanted for a while. And, weeeeell, if the bottle of chrome polishing helped, all the better.

But—

“Why, are you? She asks him instead.

“I think I asked first.”

“That depends,” she says, watching the way his mouth twists downwards. Now that he has his glasses back on, she can’t read his eyes anymore. But she figured it’d be too cruel to let him walk in the sun while nursing a hangover. “What happened before...does that make you go back on your word? Does that mean you’ll leave?”

He takes his time to think his answer over—she’s starting to recognize these as the moments when he’ll tell her the truth. “No. It doesn’t. I’m still not going anywhere.”

“Good,” Laura says. “That means I don’t regret anything.”

When he doesn’t answer, she looks up to see if she can study his face enough to get her answer. And he smiles. A small, uncertain smile. But a smile nonetheless.

And it’s answer enough.


End file.
